Feet Like Joseph

[Speaker 1] Trusting these fellowships cannot be more spiritual than the individuals and families that constitute them. God’s will is the godly life. These are words of revelation and instruction in righteousness from Family Tent Ministry. May you be blessed as you listen. [Speaker 2] Lord, you will attend to us. You will meet with us in the name of Jesus Christ. We trust in you for our brethren who are joining us on Mixlr and Telegram. As we all fellowship together this morning, Lord, we pray it shall be a perfect encounter in the name of Jesus. Thank you, eternal Father. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So, Feet Like Joseph. Feet Like Joseph. We want to go to the whole story about Joseph. It commences in Genesis 37, and it was a story that continued till the end of Genesis, either directly to him or around him or about him. The story continued like that till almost the close of the book of Genesis. Now, I am aware that we must have heard so many things about Joseph. I am not in doubt that some of us who are listening to me right now would have heard so many things about Joseph. At different times, too, in different meetings, I have said several things about Joseph. So, our focus today is not so much on those incidents, but rather the driving force behind these events. The story of Joseph began in Genesis 37:2. The history of Jacob, Joseph being seventeen. He was with his father’s children, those to report their wrongdoing to their father. The father loved him and prepared a coat for him of many colors. The elder brothers hated him. At a point, even the father rebuked him for his dream because he said the eleven stars and the sun and the moon bowed down to me. On and on, the brothers got envious and sold him into slavery. He got to the house of Potiphar by providence and became a worker there. Things began to turn well again for him, only for Potiphar's wife to notice Joseph. And in noticing Joseph, she wanted Joseph to have sexual intercourse with her, but Joseph would not agree. Then at a point, having pleaded and pleaded daily and the young man was not coming, she did everything she could do, wanting to outsmart the young man. But Joseph escaped. The Bible says he ran. The Yorubas will say, "Koju m'ari bi, gbogbo ara l'ogun e." He ran. He ran for his life. And of course, that got him implicated in a story of attempted rape. Before you knew it, he found himself in prison. Inside the prison again, he began to display his faithfulness and dedication towards God. And then we found him interpreting the dream of two officers of Pharaoh: the baker, the butler. Before you knew it, of course, one of the officers was restored, the other one was killed according to the word of Joseph. But the person who was not killed, the butler, forgot Joseph. But two years after, there was a dream by Pharaoh. And then the butler remembered, "Wow, there is somebody that God must pardon me for, for my sin that I forgot." And then Joseph was brought, interpreted the dream of Pharaoh, and then the next thing that happened was we realized that Joseph was taken from the background and was placed over all the nobles and the lords of Egypt. He became second in command to Pharaoh and was the one managing the whole economy. That was the long abbreviated story of the man, Joseph. The second part of the story is the elder brothers coming around following the famine that was global. As at that time, they came down to buy grains. Joseph was able to recognize them, but they did not. Eventually, it was, "Go and bring my father." And then Joseph was brought. Jacob was brought to Egypt, and then like you normally see in many of these cartoon stories, it was happy ever after. The famine was over for them. There was enough food to eat in Egypt, and Joseph became the supplier for the whole family. That's the length and breadth of that story. The concluding aspect of Joseph's life was that his father died. The brothers were afraid again that Joseph might take revenge for what they had done. Afraid, they came to plead with him, but he made them realize that, "See, I am beyond all of that. That can never happen." He reassured them and comforted them. And then eventually Joseph was to die. And we saw that Jacob died, Joseph went for the burial. Eventually, Joseph himself was to die. And then he gave commandment concerning his bones, and he told them that, "I know that God is going to visit you. He is going to take you out of this place. Please, don't bury me here. When you are going, go with my bones. Go and bury me in the Promised Land." And that was how it ended, the story of Joseph. So, what exactly is our focus this morning? What is it that we want to look at? Feet Like Joseph. What we really want to look at this morning is what exactly made Joseph to be who he was? The inner life of Joseph. That is the focus of today's meeting. And we want to consider just three things this morning. That is, what exactly is it about Joseph? Why was he able to live like that in his father's house? Why was he able to live like that in Potiphar's house? Why was he able to get to the throne? Why was he able to live like that while he was on the throne? Why didn't he hold his brothers to ransom? Why, why, why? What is it about Joseph that made Joseph who he was? And that is what we want to look at. Feet Like Joseph. Can we follow his example? This kind of step, what is it about his inner life that we can learn from, that we can follow, that made Joseph who he is or who he was, looking at the story? And please, I want you to bear in mind that Genesis was written by Moses. Moses was somebody who lived far into hundreds of years after Joseph had died. So, you must bear in mind that as at the time Joseph was living his life, Joseph did not know that he would be recorded. I like to remind us of this. It is always in my mind, anywhere I am, any time I want to talk about the life of Joseph. You must bear in mind that he did not know that this would be penned down. He never had an understanding so that we can say that Joseph was acting a script that was given to him in a Christian drama. It is not his actual life; he was just acting that script. That's why he was able to behave so amazingly, because he was just meant to memorize a script and then speak to that script. All the other actors in the game, they already know how the whole matter will end. So, it's not like Joseph was—that was the quality of his life. It was just that he was acting a Christian drama. That's not the case. All the other actors, he didn't know how they would act. He did not even know how life would turn. So, as we start this morning, the first thing I want to say, and I want this to sink into you very well, are two important scriptures. The first one is, I want to tell you something: Mark a perfect man. Behold the upright, the end of that man will be peace. Psalm 37:37 says, Mark a perfect man. Behold the upright, the end of that man will be peace. The second thing I also want to make you, I also want to say as we begin this morning, is that there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. There is nothing to the minutest details of your life. Heaven is taking account. I don't know whether you understand me. I mean the private, quiet, unseen, deep secrets of your life. No matter how private and personal they are, intimate or hidden they are inside something, nobody on Earth knows but you. I just want to announce to you, all those things, they are in the public domain. The public domain of the Father with whom you have come to deal, to have dealings with. This God you have come to relate with, this God you come to have dealings with, whatever you are doing, they are in His public domain. They are not—it is to you that you feel it is quiet and secret. For Him, it is in the public domain. My prayer is that when the music stops and the song is over and the secrets of the hearts of men are laid bare, may you and I not be found wanting in the name of Jesus Christ. So, we go to, having made those two background statements, we want to look at why was Joseph who he was. I said three things we want to consider. Number one. Number one is Joseph is an individual that has a personal, private, intimate, consistent, fervent relationship with the Father. Joseph was not just inside the fellowship or inside the church. Joseph was not just an executive. Joseph was not just president of fellowship or pastor of the assembly. What Joseph truly was is that he was a man, he was a young man—in fact, a young teenager—in fact, a child who had a personal, private, intimate, consistent, continuous relationship with the Father. There's a strong intimacy between Joseph and God. A very strong intimacy. And I'm going to explain that so that you can understand me. I'm not just talking of somebody doing his quiet time. Of course, doing your quiet time is a way of building your relationship with God. But I'm talking about a lot of things that go into the personal, private life of Joseph. And what I want to do is I want to explain to you the way you will know if you have such things. The indices. If you have such a relationship, how will you know? This is what I want to speak on, then it will be clear to you. So that if you don't have these indices in your life, you will know that it is possible you are in fellowship with God but you don't know God intimately. So that as a young person, as a young man, as a young woman listening to me this morning, you can look into your life. Singles Club is a practical section of discipleship. We always just come to look at something and we look at it thoroughly, and then we leave it. We try to give you life-molding blocks so that you can have living blocks to build your life. I pray you will build to last, and you will make a mark in time, and you will last into eternity in the name of Jesus Christ. Now, how do you know? How do you know if you have feet like Joseph? I'm talking about an individual who actually, for real, has a personal, private, intimate, fervent, consistent, continuous relationship with the Father. How do you know if you're such an individual? How do you know you have such a feet? How do you know that your walk, your one, two, three, the way you are taking your steps in life—how do you know whether you have it? Now, you see, having this life does not necessarily mean that you are somebody who is serving God. You may be serving God and don't have it. It doesn't necessarily mean that you are somebody who has gifts from God. You are gifted by God and don't have it. Now, let me bring the balance for you. You see, when a man is truly intimate with God, one very strong thing you will see about that man is on one hand, in the stretch of his life—a very vivid stretch—is that he will love righteousness. Now, that is what we are more familiar with. But that is just one stretch. Now, there's another stretch that goes with it. You know in mathematics, they talk about direction of relationship. A relationship could be inverse or could be direct. When it is direct, it is positive. When it is inverse, it is negative. For those of us who are not serious mathematicians, what it means is that when relationship is direct, the two things are going in the same direction. If one is increasing, the other one too is increasing. If one is decreasing, the other one too is decreasing. That's a direct relationship. Then you have the inverse relationship. The inverse relationship means that when one is going up, the other one is going down. Or if one is going down, the other one is going up. That's inverse. Now, you know whether you have serious intimacy with God, you know whether you are sharing intimacy with God, when there is a direct relationship between your love for righteousness and your hatred for iniquity. There must be a direct relationship. If you are loving righteousness but you are not hating wickedness, you don't know God intimately. There is something wrong about your fellowship with God. It is not the feet of Joseph. It is not the example that the Bible recorded for us. Such men are like Samson. Samson was gifted. He was fighting the enemies of God. He was killing the Philistines. He loved righteousness. But know the problem? He did not hate wickedness. Your love for righteousness must have a direct relationship with your hatred for wickedness. It is such men that are like Jesus. Let me show you. I will show you in Psalm 45, and I will show you where it was repeated in Hebrews 1. Look at Psalm 45. I know our brethren who are very good in song, they have composed what I want to show you now into song, but some of us may not know the song and I know some of us may know it. "Thy throne, O Lord, is for ever and ever. The scepter of thy kingdom is of righteousness." Now, look at Psalm 45, verse 6 and verse 7. "Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom." Are you seeing that? On one stretch, what do you find? Righteousness. The scepter of His kingdom is the scepter of righteousness. Then verse 7. What do you see? "You have loved righteousness." Do you see another relationship with the righteousness? "And hate wickedness." Are you seeing the relationship? "Therefore your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions." That was why Joseph was exalted beyond his brothers. That was why he was lifted up. He said, "I had a dream. We were all in the field. We were gathering sheaves. Suddenly, my own sheaf arose and all your own, they bowed down." The brothers don't understand that it is in loving righteousness and in hating wickedness that the Lord anoints with the oil of gladness above your companion. It is in loving righteousness and hating wickedness. May that be our portion. May that be our life. May that happen as an awakening in the church today. May it be a wind that will blow into our fellowships, into our churches. May it blow through. Oh, what a revival we will have in this nation. What a great change that will come, because heaven will greatly delight. There will be great joy in heaven. There will be, "Wow, things are turning to the right path," because the foundation of God's kingdom stands sure. The Lord knows those who are His. Let everyone who names the name of the Lord, let them depart from iniquity. Anyone who does not depart from iniquity—no, he is taking the name of the Lord in vain. Don’t take the name of the Lord in vain. Don’t take His name in vain. Don’t call His name in vain. You can see these people. He says, "I don’t know you." All they did was in vain. Feet Like Joseph. May we have feet like Joseph. May more of our young men and young women begin to develop this kind of feet of Joseph. Joseph already had this feet as at the age seventeen. As at age seventeen, when he was dealing with people that are like his uncle, they could not compel him to do evil with them. They say, "Joseph, what's wrong with you? Come and do this." He says, "No, I'm not doing. Papa said we should not do it." "Eh, I will beat you." Maybe they slapped him, they conked him. Instead of joining, he did not join. He went back home and said, "Daddy, Uncle Reuben, Uncle Issachar, they are doing evil." Oh, Feet Like Joseph. Feet Like Joseph. Loving righteousness and hating wickedness. Number two. Number two, what we need to look into. Joseph had a clear understanding of the principle of faithfulness. Joseph, I am talking about the inner life of this young man, what made that man what he became and the things that we are looking at. Joseph had a clear understanding of the principle of faithfulness. My fear about this generation, particularly this younger generation—this category of thirty downward, and if I may extend it to forty downward—this category of people, my fear is that the generality—please note my word, I didn't say all of them. I said the generality, that is, more of the people you have in this category, the majority of them, don't have a clear understanding of the principle of faithfulness. The principle of faithfulness, we don't understand it. When I see the way what some young people do, when I see the way what some young people do—particularly for me as a teacher, when I see what sometimes my students do, or what I see sometimes young colleagues, what I see they do with the students—there is no clear understanding of the principle of faithfulness. So, what we want to do is we want to explore again this principle of faithfulness. But in exploring it—because I don't know how far I will travel before it may be 11:30. Like I told you, I'm not in a rush. I'm not in a rush. I don't know how far I will travel. So, I would want to first make a fundamental statement so that in case I could not finish exploring it and we are closing for today, you would have taken something that is the fundamental. Let’s look at the word of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's where I want to begin from. And don't forget what I normally tell you, young people, my sons, my daughters who may be listening to me this morning from any part of the globe, and other young people who may be joining us this morning. Please don't forget what I normally tell you. There is a great difference between when somebody says Jesus said or God said and when Jesus is speaking directly. There is a great difference. What I mean is that while it is true we are ministers of the Gospel, somebody can delegate. The president may not have time to go to a place and he will say, "Minister for or Chief of Staff, go and represent me in that meeting because I will not be chanced." And then he goes there and speaks. And whatever he said there is taken as if the president has spoken. But it's a different thing when the president himself is there. The president coming, he will come with another kind of aura that is different from that of the Chief of Staff that came to represent him. That is why you will notice that in the older Bibles, the word of Jesus, they are written in red. Everything else will be in black. They are trying to make you understand that, "Look, listen, this one is Jesus speaking." This is Jesus speaking. Luke chapter 16. Can we see something in Luke chapter 16? I want us to save ourselves the time of looking at the parable of the unfaithful servant. But I'm coming to take it from verse 10 where the Lord began to address issues from the parable. He said, "He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much. He who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much." Another translation, NIV: "Unless you are faithful in small matters, you won't be faithful in large ones. If you cheat even a little, you won't be honest with greater responsibility." I’m showing you what the Lord is saying. Understanding the principle of faithfulness. So, faithfulness is not about big, big things. Faithfulness is about little, little things. That's what I'm first trying to make you see. When you say, "Is it not just ordinary biro? Just ordinary biro and he's talking? Ordinary biro." You don't know scriptures. The fact that your unfaithfulness is biro—maybe I don't know how much they sell biro now because everything is now costly. Last time I bought it, it was 50 naira. I don't know now. Maybe let me just assume maybe 150. The fact that you could be unfaithful with 150 naira worth of something translates to mean that with 150,000, you will not be faithful. Faithfulness is a spirit. Faithfulness is an attitude. It's not about the bigness or the smallness of the matter. Faithfulness is a heart. It has nothing to do with the size of what is involved. It has nothing to do with the nature of what is involved. It is a heart that chooses to be genuine in every situation regardless of what is involved. You are genuine. You see, it is this thing that translates into many things. You'll be counseling with young couples sometimes. They say, "Actually, I love my wife. I make sure she knows what I am doing." And then I remember a case where the wife said, "Sir, I don't find that to be true because I don't know his salary." And we asked the young man, "How much are you earning?" He said, "She knows. She knows. Don't mind her." "But she said you know." She said, "Sir, ask him what I know." I was getting confused. I said, "Young man, what is it?" The matter was that there have been several increments, several additions to the salary, but the young man did not tell the wife. So, it was what she used to know that the wife was still thinking the young man was earning until the wife discovered. So, all the additional that came on it, the young man was busy using that for something else. Oh, I’m talking about faithfulness. It’s been started long ago in their life. In that young man's life, it started long ago. He has learned while he was growing up, he didn't develop the principle of faithfulness, being genuine. So many troubles today in marriages, so many troubles today in offices, so many troubles today in society, in governance, because people are not genuine. And you know, I like illustrating this matter, the way the whole thing is so bad. With the minister wanted to make money for himself, the president gave instruction that, "Look, get this thing, this thing should be taken down to the school at the rate of 10-10 naira." The minister moved to the level of the state and he says, "This thing is 20-20 naira." 10-10 naira goes to him. By the time it gets to the governor, from the governor, it moves to the commissioner. "This thing is going for 35 naira." By the time it moves from there, governor to the from the commissioner to the administrative person in charge of that, maybe education, he says, "This thing is going for 50-50 naira." By the time that one gets to the principal, he tells, "This thing is going for 100-100 naira." By the time the principal gets to the teacher, "It's going for 150." By the time the teacher gets to the student, "This is going for 200." By the time the student gets to the father, to the mother, "Our son says they will need 500." So, where is corruption? You see, I'm trying to make you understand something: where we are as a society, and where we are in our various families, where we are in our various offices, where we are in governance. And that is why you are seeing all of the protests we are having today. Because these people that we are busy talking about, they may enter church on Sunday, they may pray five times a day as Muslims, they may be in their shrine, "Ogun de!" they will carry their dog, cut the head, do their "Ogun de." They all call themselves religious people, but where is character? Where is faithfulness? Unless you are faithful in small matters, you won't be faithful in large ones. So, what you see today in large scale began in little ways. That okada rider that took advantage of people because it is raining. By the time he becomes governor, he will take advantage of the state because he's governor. Unless, unless you are faithful as a market woman while you are selling tomatoes and maggi and matches, if we make you commissioner for women affairs, you will not be faithful. Don't say because Nigeria is hard, the little what I'm making is so small. If we give you big one, you will still be a thief. Even when you have enough, you will still be stealing. Why are our governors stealing? Why are our chairmen in local governments stealing? Why are ministers, why are they—why do we have all kinds of issue of fraud and all of these things flying everywhere? EFCC arresting this one, EFCC arresting that one. Are they people who don't have enough to eat and to drink? Faithfulness is a spirit. Faithfulness is an attitude. Faithfulness is a heart. I am concluding, I am telling you, I want you to know something: that many people will die not getting what heaven intended for them. The good, the greatness that heaven intended for them, like our fathers who perished in the wilderness, never entering into the Promised Land. Do you know how many got to the Promised Land? Two. The majority did not enter. The same way I'm telling you, on account of this principle, so many people will not enter into what God intended for them because if you are not faithful in what belongs to another person, who will give you your own? I have closed the meeting here for today. We will have Feet Like Joseph 2 in the month of September, God sparing our lives beyond then. The Lord bless and keep you. The Lord cause His face to shine upon you. The Lord preserve us in every way. The Lord make our society a better place. The Lord make our families, the home front, a better place. The Lord make our institutions—educational, political, religious, economic, military, health—may God make them a better place for us as God raises for us men who have faithful spirits in the name of Jesus Christ. Let's share the Grace together. The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us now and forevermore. Amen. [Speaker 1] This message is coming to you from Family Tent Ministry, a Christian ministry involved in enriching the lives of singles and married through preaching and teaching of God’s word, discipleship, family life enrichment, social and community development, and mission aid. Our regular activities are Discipleship Class every Monday, 5:00 PM; Adolescents and Singles Club, every first Saturday of every month at 10:00 AM; Marriage Forum, second Saturday of every month at 10:00 AM; family life seminars, regular school outreaches, and everyday counseling. For further counseling, you can reach us at our location: Lite Camp, Bypass Bridge, Ilere Community, opposite Rejoice Filling Station along Ilesa Road, Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. You can also reach us through our social media handles: familytent@yahoo.co.uk, familytentministry01@gmail.com, www.familytentministry.org. Our phone numbers are 08033861136, 07033613848. God bless you all.